Forrester: Open Text Makes A DAM SaaS-y Move

Open Text has acquired eMotion, a SaaS based Digital Asset Management solution. Combined with the OPenText platform a good Software + Services example I would say …

… Open Text announced late last week that it has acquired eMotion, a software-as-a-service digital asset management (DAM) product, from Corbis. Open Text plans to rebrand eMotion as Artesia on Demand for Marketing, complementing its full-featured, installed Artesia DAM product.

This move into SaaS DAM is a smart move by Open Text. The installed version of Artesia has a reputation as one of the top DAM solutions out there, but its functionality and price tag may be daunting for those organizations just starting to dip their toes into the DAM waters. Some enterprises don't have the need for some of the high-end functionality - management of broadcast-quality video, for example - that "Classic Artesia" offers. Instead, many enterprises exploring DAM want to use it to manage rich media assets for use in the online channel. …

Source: Open Text Makes A DAM SaaS-y Move

TechWorld - Gartner: 'Impact Security-as-a-Service enorm'

Het probleem met ‘SaaS’ is dat het een beetje een doel op zich lijkt te worden. Als er maar ‘SaaS’  voorstaat is het nieuw. “Beveiliging zal op nieuwe manieren en door nieuwe spelers worden aangeboden”  staat er in het artikel. Natuurlijk komen er nieuwe spelers, maar er zijn ook al veel bestaande oplossingen voor bijvoorbeeld anti-virus / anti-spam die al jaren als dienst worden aangeboden. Zelfs in de tijd dat ‘SaaS’ nog niet ‘Sexy’ was …

Een goed voorbeeld dicht bij huis is Exchange Hosted Services :

• Exchange Hosted Filtering
  Active content, connection, policy-based filtering and multi-engine spam and virus scanning with low false positive ratios and e-mail queuing when server is unavailable.
• Exchange Hosted Archive
  Support to help satisfy industry and regulatory retention requirements, with fully-functional backup, rapid search and retrieval, and pre-archive spam filtering.
• Exchange Hosted Continuity
  Accessible e-mail during and after network outages, with a searchable 30-day rolling message store for easy recovery.
• Exchange Hosted Encryption
  Policy-based encryption from sender to recipient with an intuitive interface that requires minimal end user training.

SaaS gaat de security-industrie flink op zijn kop zetten, zo voorspelt marktvorser Gartner in een rapport. Beveiliging zal op nieuwe manieren en door nieuwe spelers worden aangeboden.

De marktvorser verwacht dat het aandeel cloudgebaseerde diensten op sommige deelgebieden de komende jaren zal verdrievoudigen. Gartner noemt als voorbeeld de beveiliging van het berichtenverkeer, zoals het filteren van malware en spam uit e-mail en instant messaging. In 2008 zullen cloudgebaseerde diensten hier 20 procent van de omzet voor hun rekening nemen. In 2013 zal dit aandeel zijn gestegen naar 60 procent.
Volgens Gartner wordt het voor nieuwe spelers makkelijker om in de beveiligingsmarkt te stappen. Dit komt mede doordat het leveringsmodel flexibeler is af te stemmen op de wensen van de consument. Wel vragen sommige beveiligingfuncties, zoals vulnerability scanning en log management, om een ingrijpende aanpassing van de eigen infrastructuur. …

Bron: Gartner: 'Impact Security-as-a-Service enorm'

Ziff Davis / Burton Group: Software as a Service Survey

Interesting survey results (11 slides). High level conclusion SaaS is not new to many of the companies surveyed

In an April SaaS survey conducted by Burton Group and Ziff Davis Enterprise Research, 67 percent of the 252 CIOs whose companies use some form of SaaS have been doing so for two or more years....

Continue at source: Software as a Service Survey

Forrester: European Consumers' Behavior Online: A 2007 Deep Dive

“… consumers are spending more time online engaged in dozens of new bandwidth-heavy activities…” This is an interesting yet obvious conclusion. Broadband has become a commodity in almost every western country and ‘standard’  in many European countries.

When you put ‘ high bandwidth acitivites’  in relation to SaaS what do you get ? Powerfull backend applications running in a browser is an option. It could very well be powerfull applications, rich content ran by powerfull local applications. This is an aspect of what Microsoft calls software + services. High bandwidth makes the location (local / remote) of information irrelevant as it is transported in seconds. Consumers in this case decide how thay ‘process’  the content …

… Forrester has surveyed European adults about their technology use for nine years. We track a wide variety of online activities relevant to consumers' daily lives, and we dive deeply into media consumption, online shopping, entertainment, and social networking online activities to understand how this changes over time. Now that broadband has reached 72% penetration among Internet users in Europe and is almost ubiquitous in some European countries, consumers are spending more time online engaged in dozens of new bandwidth-heavy activities. This deep dive into European consumers' behavior online will give market research professionals the tools they need to bring facts and insights into their company's marketing and strategic planning discussions. …

Source: European Consumers' Behavior Online: A 2007 Deep Dive

Microsoft adding 10,000 new datacenter servers a month

Interesting, yet unconfirmed numbers ....

Today’s trivia question: How big is Microsoft’s back-end services infrastructure?

Microsoft officials won’t say how many servers total Microsoft has churning in its various datacenters. But Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Global Foundation Services Debra Chrapaty is on record saying Microsoft is adding 10,000 new servers a month.

(Facebook is estimated to have 10,000 servers total, the Data Center Knowledge folks report. In other words, Microsoft is adding one Facebook-worth of new servers every 30 days.)

On a related note, Microsoft has been building out its content-distribution-network (CDN) infrastructure, as well, as noted in a Bill Gates ThinkWeek paper that I excerpted in my Microsoft 2.0 book. Microsoft was already building out in late 2006 its Blue Cloud and CloudDB services to support the hundreds of Microsoft online properties/services it was powering.

Source: Microsoft adding 10,000 new datacenter servers a month

Forrester: Backup Software-As-A-Service

Who would have guessed :-) Backup is a big opportunity as a Service ...

Since a couple of months I use the " Backup-as-a-Service" of Keepvault to backup my entire Microsoft HomeServer in the cloud, sort of a backup of all backups ...

Backup is a struggle for both enterprises and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). It's a complex ecosystem of backup software, networks, servers, disk arrays, and tape systems. Many firms have difficulty completing backups in the time available, and a large number of backups fail or complete with errors. In addition, there are gaps in backup coverage. SMBs and enterprises often don't protect corporate PCs, and enterprises often don't protect machines at remote offices. Given the headaches associated with backup and the gaps in coverage, many firms are considering an online backup service. An online backup is just the first step toward the delivery of multiple infrastructure-related services — such as disaster recovery, archiving, and security.

Source: Backup Software-As-A-Service

Forrester: Information-As-A-Service: Delivering Real-Time Information Drives Market Toward The Mainstream

The IaaS market is current growing @ 40% per year ...

Increasing business demand for near-real-time delivery of high-quality information in context is driving enterprise architects and application developers toward new service-oriented ways of accessing and integrating enterprise information. Earlier-era technologies such as enterprise information integration (EII), extract, transform, and load (ETL), and replication are failing to support the requirements of these new service-oriented technologies. New technologies that enable information-as-a-service (IaaS) overcome these challenges, delivering quality, federated information in near-real time to support multiple applications and provide deep business insight. The IaaS market is growing rapidly, around 40% annually, with top vendors such as BEA Systems, Composite Software, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat offering comprehensive IaaS solutions. Architects and developers should now include IaaS middleware in the top tier of options for delivering integrated information in context with applications, driving deep business insight, especially where service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives are under way.

Source: Information-As-A-Service: Delivering Real-Time Information Drives Market Toward The Mainstream

Forrester: Identity-As-A-Service

With many ISVs and platform compannies delivering more and more solution in the cloud, Identity Management is a key companent and may very well become a bottleneck in many solutions, especially when multiple vendors are involved.

... Redesigning the enterprise architecture for identity and access management (IAM) is an important task. As organizations' requirements become more complex, and to keep administrative costs down, IAM functionality needs to be increasingly externalized from business applications. When this task is completed successfully, IT and business benefits are clearly in evidence. Business benefits include deeper insight into the effectiveness of policy management, reduced operational risk, and higher compliance.

IT benefits are easier administration and outsourcing of IAM functions, reduced application development cycle times through code reuse, and architectural flexibility to support mergers and acquisitions and other organizational changes.

Although there are early examples of organizations gaining such benefits by adopting an identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) framework, organizations should look at IDaaS as a long-term strategic effort and proceed incrementally, not only with the technical implementation, but in maturing their identity related policy and management processes and strengthening interdepartmental relationships. ...

Identity-As-A-Service

Networkworld: Microsoft SharePoint taking business by storm

Networkworld published an article about the (very) rapid uptake of Microsoft SharePoint Server.

Very cool that the introduction of Microsoft Online Services, which includes Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 hosted by Microsoft, is referred to as the 'perfect storm' ...

... Versatile Microsoft server may not be perfect, but it is attracting interest as tool to address anything from collaboration to process management

Microsoft's SharePoint Server is on a billion dollar juggernaut to potentially become the next must-have technology, offering companies tools for building everything from collaborative applications to Internet sites and potentially handing Microsoft its next cash cow.

"I have not seen anything like this since the early days of [Lotus] Notes," says Mike Gotta, an analyst with the Burton Group. In those days, corporate users were enamored with a shiny new technology that seemed to have infinite uses. "The talk [around SharePoint] is getting strategic now and people are talking about it as a middleware decision," Gotta says.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 is the fastest growing product in the company's history and seems to have as many uses as a Swiss Army knife. Its six focus areas are collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management (ECM), business process management and business intelligence.

Just last month, Microsoft added a hosted alternative to fuel adoption. There is a "perfect storm," observers say, around SharePoint in terms of the popularity of Web-based computing, demand for less-expensive ECM and portal tools, collaboration technology and integration around Microsoft's Office suite.  ...

Read on : NetworkWorld.com

CIO's fear consumer technologies

Every year CIO.com has a survey amongs CIO's about the usage and uptake of consumer technologies:

... Even if most CIOs and IT managers were to acknowledge that major technology innovations occur in the consumer space first before they carry over into the enterprise, that doesn’t mean they have to like it. It also doesn’t mean the explosion of devices, smart phones, Web-based applications and social networks doesn’t keep them up at night worrying about enterprise security. In the Nine Consumer Technologies CIOs Fear, we profiled which technologies IT executives find the most troublesome from a security perspective. ...

Source : cio.com So what's on the list ? .. Threat No. 9: VoIP Clients (1%) Threat No. 8: Web-Based Productivity Applications (2%) Threat No. 7: Digital Cameras (4%) Threat No. 6: Remote Storage (5%) Threat No. 5: Smartphones (7%) Threat No. 4: Social Networks (10%) Threat No. 3: Instant Messaging (11%) Threat No. 2: Consumer E-Mail (18%) Threat No. 1: Portable Storage Devices (43%) Source : CIO.com

Google: The Hollow Echo of a Click

Interesting perspective found on Peter O'Kelly's blog ...

Hmmm...

Consider the results of one study, released on Feb. 12 by comScore, media agency Starcom USA, and the ad network Tacoda, owned by AOL (TWX). It found that just 6% of Web surfers account for more than 50% of all clicks on display ads, such as the rectangular banner ads that stretch across the top of many Web pages. In addition, most of these heavy clickers earn less than $40,000 a year, and they account for less than 15% of the actual shopping online. "What we have seen is that optimizing for [clicks] alone tends to get you an audience with a propensity to click," says Daniel Jaye, Tacoda's president.

BTW, ask yourself: when was the last time you clicked (on purpose...) on a banner ad?

Google: The Hollow Echo of a Click

Source: Google: The Hollow Echo of a Click

Microsoft Matches Google With SaaS for E-Mail/SharePoint

Gartner has produced a first response to yesterday's announcement. "Matches Google" is really an understatement ...

Responding to the threat from Google, and sensing a significant business opportunity, Microsoft has announced substantial plans for an Exchange and SharePoint software-as-a-service model.

On 2 March 2008, Microsoft announced a beta version of a multitenant server software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, to be used initially for e-mail and teamware (SharePoint), but expanding, we believe, to other applications, such as Office, over time. Delivery of the platform is planned for 4Q08. Microsoft already offers a dedicated server SaaS platform for companies with over 5,000 seats. This implementation is for organizations with under 5,000 seats. Pricing has not been announced.

The SaaS model is in its infancy, but holds considerable appeal, particularly for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). This is because it offers fixed monthly fees, freedom from most operational management, elimination of upgrade responsibilities and, in some cases, lower costs. The potential of the SaaS delivery model has had a significant impact on vendor dynamics, driving Cisco to acquire WebEx, Yahoo to buy Zimbra, Google to purchase Postini, Dell to buy MessageOne and SAP to invest heavily in its Business ByDesign platform.

We believe the SaaS model will dramatically change the way businesses provision, operate and consume IT services during the next five years. Microsoft's SaaS investment is both an offensive move to capture operational revenue (in addition to the license fees it now collects), and a defensive measure to combat potential incursions from suppliers such as Google.

The challenges Microsoft faces are considerable. While it runs one of the largest public portal sites in the industry, providing large-scale SaaS services for business requires significant expertise in high availability, security, multitenant architectures, network topologies and problem resolution. Furthermore, Microsoft is retrofitting its existing software to the multitenant server model. It won't be until the next version of Exchange (due in 2011) that its core products are better architected to run in a multitenant SaaS model.

Nonetheless, Microsoft's substantial market share in the e-mail and teamware market, particularly among SMBs, and the growing acceptance of SaaS business models create a significant opportunity for Microsoft. We believe that 20% of enterprise e-mail seats will use a SaaS provisioning model by 2012, compared with 1% in 2007.

Recommendations

• Develop a model for evaluating SaaS offerings in preparation for the expected heavy vendor participation in this area during the next several years.
• Pilot Microsoft's SaaS offering in 2008 if appropriate, but deploy it in production only after maturity is demonstrated, which is likely to take 12 to 18 months.

Source : Gartner.com : microsoft_match...pdf

Forrester: Top Unified Communications Predictions For 2008

Fully agree here Hosting and SaaS will become a favorable approach for UC and will speed up deployments ...

In 2007, the vendor side of unified communications (UC) saw tremendous hype, while many buyers struggled with confusion, wondering exactly how to define UC and what UC meant for their businesses. Still, UC met a growing demand; more than 50% of enterprises now report that they are evaluating, installing, or running UC solutions. The great promise of UC is that it will enable communication with experts and decision-makers in order to facilitate the resolution of business issues when, where, and by whatever means is best suited to achieving the task at hand.

What should you expect in 2008? Mobility will become an expected part of UC, video will come of age for multiple purposes, communication-enabled business processes will start providing return on investment (ROI), and hosted and software-as-a-service (SaaS) UC offerings and demand will grow. Don't expect federated presence to break out of the pack yet, though; interoperability and user-configuration tools remain roadblocks to adoption in the near term.

Source: Top Unified Communications Predictions For 2008
"Henry Dewing"
Date Published: Wed, 20 Feb 2008

Forrester: How To Staff For Social Computing

Interesting point of view by Forrester: Social Computing requires specialist resources. I don't necessarily agree. Look at how far millions of users have comewith all the Web 2.0 solutions out there like Linked-In, MySPace, Facebook, Hyves, etc. etc.

These types of solutions is exactly what users want and need within their organisation as well. Anyone or anything making the introduction / adoption of these tools more complicated, let alone someone who defines policies and rules will limit the adoption. I think we've 'been there done that' with Knowledge Management ...

Don't try to build and run social applications without the right staff. We've identified two key new roles needed for success: 1) the Social Computing strategist, who'll lead the internal charge, and 2) the community manager, an external customer advocate. Working in tandem, these roles will align Social Computing programs with the business and ensure that community members are happy. Management should agree upon goals and then give the team latitude to get the job done —including embracing mistakes as new programs are tested out.

Source: How To Staff For Social Computing
"Jeremiah K. Owyang"
Date Published: Thu, 28 Feb 2008

Forrester: The Web 2.0 Buyer Profile: 2008

According to Forrester, Web 2.0 is not a business priority in 2008. This is very much in line with the audience in our Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 presentation back in november 2007. Almost none of the 80 or so people in our session had actual large scale implementations under way yet ...

In 2008, one in three businesses across North America and Europe is planning to invest in Web 2.0 tools and technologies. This attention will be a boon to vendors selling Web 2.0 technology. However, most buyers will start slow and are interested in just one or two pieces of functionality, such as wikis or RSS (really simple syncidation).

Very few of the businesses planning to adopt Web 2.0 tools see the technology itself as a priority in 2008; instead, most plan to focus on business problems, such as application integration and collaboration platform deployment.

Vendors must commit to smaller deals for the short term, but, to prepare for enriched deals in 2009, align themselves with 2008 IT priorities and clearly articulate to clients how Web 2.0 technologies are solving specific business problems.

Source: The Web 2.0 Buyer Profile: 2008
"G. Oliver Young"
Date Published: Wed, 06 Feb 2008

The Forrester Wave: Message Archiving Hosted Services, Q1 2008

According to Forrester Microsoft has some work to do. IN this relatively new playing field that's just normal and I assume is being worked on ...

In Forrester's 71-criteria evaluation of message archiving hosted services vendors, we found that Autonomy ZANTAZ leads the pack with strong search functionality and vision for its services. Global Relay Communications is an up-and-comer that, with more resources, can provide a viable alternative, while Iron Mountain, LiveOffice, and Microsoft need to build out support for more advanced retention management and eDiscovery features in order to remain competitive. All vendors must also compete with the popular message archiving software providers whose advanced offerings are keeping the hosted services market out of the limelight thus far.

Source: The Forrester Wave: Message Archiving Hosted Services, Q1 2008
"Barry Murphy"
Date Published: Thu, 07 Feb 2008

Forrester: SMB SaaS Adoption: Road Bumps Ahead In 2008

The report seems to address that before going mainstream, SaaS for SMB has to undergo some perception changes when it comes to security and performance ...

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) adoption by small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) increased by 58% to 15% from 2006 to 2007 as the market's early adopters flocked to the SaaS siren song of lower costs, quick deployment times, and mitigating IT staff constraints. But during that same period, non-users' skepticism widened, with increasing concerns about total cost of ownership (TCO), integration, security, and application performance. To ensure that SMB SaaS adoption glides smoothly into the early majority phase, marketers will need to address skeptics' concerns head-on. Marketers will need to clearly demonstrate the TCO advantages of SaaS, ensure that their products have well-defined data integration and conversion procedures, show price transparency, and have well-articulated security and data protection stories.

Source: SMB SaaS Adoption: Road Bumps Ahead In 2008
"Michael Speyer"
Date Published: Thu, 07 Feb 2008

The Forrester Wave(tm): Enterprise Learning Management Suites, Q1 2008

 

In Forrester's 90-criteria evaluation of learning management system (LMS) vendors, we found that Saba, SumTotal Systems, and Plateau Systems lead the pack by providing feature-rich offerings and serving a broad international customer base. GeoLearning also climbed into the Leader category with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) only product. SAP, Cornerstone OnDemand, and CERTPOINT Systems are "cuspids" — they now straddle the Leader and Strong Performer categories by deepening their product functionality over the last year. Oracle PeopleSoft, Mzinga (formerly KnowledgePlanet), and OutStart are Strong Performers that offer a solid learning solution. Oracle Learning Management (OLM) and Learn.com are lower in the Strong Performer category, with Learn.com offering a good SaaS solution and OLM providing learning management functionality for existing Oracle eBusiness suite customers.

Source: The Forrester Wave(tm): Enterprise Learning Management Suites, Q1 2008
"Claire Schooley"
Date Published: Tue, 12 Feb 2008

Forrester on Enterprise Software adoption and Enterprise 2.0 ..

2 reports by Forrester (you need a subscription).

On Web 2.0 in the Enterprise : "... The market will remain volatile, but Forrester expects midtier software vendors, consultancies and systems integrators, and Microsoft to reap the biggest rewards in the coming year."

The State Of Enterprise Software Adoption: 2007 To 2008

How are enterprises adopting, using, and managing all types of software, including enterprise applications, Web 2.0, open source, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and service-oriented architecture (SOA) — and what do they plan to do with IT budgets in the next 12 months? This document gives highlights of an extensive data set collected from 1,017 IT decision-makers across North American and European enterprises via our Business Data Services Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q3 2007. What's hot? Enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrades, SOA, and Web 2.0.

Top Enterprise Web 2.0 Predictions For 2008

The enterprise Web 2.0 market, which includes the deployment of tools like blogs, wikis, and social networking within the enterprise, was a growing force in enterprise software in 2007. While the market is still quite immature, it will continue to gain importance in 2008 as an increasing number of firms look to enterprise Web 2.0 tools to solve long-standing information worker problems. As a result, Forrester expects to see strong demand growth for tools like enterprise RSS and social networking, an increased role for IT departments in technology acquisition, and steadily growing revenue from current deployments. The market will remain volatile, but Forrester expects midtier software vendors, consultancies and systems integrators, and Microsoft to reap the biggest rewards in the coming year.

Software Licenses Are Too Costly And Complex, Survey Says

Vendors don't provide rationale behind license fees and are shifty about discounts, but the SaaS model may force them to change their ways, Forrester predicts.

... When it comes to licensing software, many IT professionals think they're not getting their money's worth, according to a new Forrester Research report. They also think software vendors don't understand their business, are shifty about discounts, and don't always provide clear direction following an acquisition. ...

... Forrester recently surveyed 25 customers of large software companies and 215 business and IT professionals. Eleven of the 25 big software customers complained that license agreements are too complex and maintenance fees are too high, according to the report by analysts Ray Wang and Elisse Gaynor. Respondents said they're often not clear on the value of what they're paying for and don't understand the rationale behind expenses, discounts, or provisions for changes to their licensing.

Among the 215 respondents, the maintenance fees they pay average 26% of their total cost of ownership of software, even though 87% said a fair price would be 24% or less of the total cost. Many respondents said they have paid for maintenance services they never use, according to Forrester.

One-quarter of the smaller respondent group said big software vendors were too "rigid," meaning they wouldn't accommodate specific needs or make an effort to understand how their businesses worked, which leads to "force fitting" apps for each client. ...

... But Forrester is optimistic about the future. Growing interest in software as a service will force providers of traditionally licensed software to change their ways. The pay-as-you-go SaaS model "will give business owners a taste of streamlined, more easily consumed licensing," Forrester predicts, noting that SaaS also typically comes with a bundled license, maintenance, and upgrade package. Customers will "gain more interest in and grow more vocal for simplistic and holistic approaches to usage-based pricing agreements," the analysts predict.

The growth of service-oriented architectures, meanwhile, will force vendors to be more flexible about pricing, Forrester predicts. As SOA eases integration among apps, the analysts reason, customers will have an eye toward their business processes when negotiating with software providers, and "will demand that vendors deliver or improvise flexibility for business process pricing."  ...

Source: Software Licenses Are Too Costly And Complex, Survey Says
Date Published: Fri, 25 Jan 2008

The Forrester Wave: Information-As-A-Service, Q1 2008

Another new acronym : IaaS ... Microsoft is doing well as an IaaS player ...

Forrester evaluated leading enterprise information-as-a-service (IaaS) vendors across 94 criteria and found that BEA Systems, IBM, Oracle, and Red Hat have established leadership positions, thanks to their IaaS capabilities, breadth of focus, and strong product and corporate strategy.

BEA Systems and Oracle were the only vendors that topped all IaaS use cases.

Ipedo, Composite Software, Microsoft, and Endeca Technologies are Strong Performers because their features and functionality are not sufficiently comprehensive to excel at all IaaS use cases, but Microsoft is among the Leaders in two selective use cases. Xcalia still has work ahead to build stronger features and functionality, but for now, it lags behind the Leaders in some key IaaS capabilities.

Source: The Forrester Wave: Information-As-A-Service, Q1 2008
"Noel Yuhanna, Mike Gilpin"
Date Published: Wed, 23 Jan 2008

One Collaboration Platform to Rule Them All?

Cathing up on some news of earlier this month.

CMSWire published an article quoting some of the findings from a recent report by Osterman Research. Let's go straight to the quotes ...

... SharePoint is a big topic these days. With the release of SharePoint Server 2007, analysts everywhere are trying to get a grasp on its reach into the enterprise and the issues surrounding its implementation.

According to the latest from Osterman Research, SharePoint is becoming the de facto collaboration platform for many organizations today. ...

Strong confirmation on the uptake of SharePoint ...

... The Osterman study sought to determine trends in the use of SharePoint over the next 12 months. Results of the study indicate that in organizations that deployed Microsoft Exchange, more than half are currently using SharePoint and 12 percent plan to deploy it in the next 12 months.

The number of organizations that employ SharePoint for mission-critical applications is less than 20 percent, a figure expected to double over the next year. Meanwhile, the number of SharePoint applications will quadruple. ...

Good detail on the level of application into 'mission-critical' area's and a strong confirmation of the level of trust companies have with regards to SharePoint, as the mission critical application of SharePoint will double over the next year ...

... The study also noted that most deployments are hosted by third-party hosting providers. Organizations for the most part don’t have plans in place for hosting SharePoint applications. ...

This is one I didn't expect to be the case already. The fact that the majority of the surveyed companies uses a hosted SharePoint environment shows also a high level of confidence in the partner ecosystem around the Microsoft platform and in hosted (SaaS) solutions ...

... To many IT managers, implementing SharePoint is a no-brainer. ..

... At the end of the day, SharePoint is still a lot cheaper than many other enterprise CMS systems. Thus it makes sense that organizations want to take advantage of it for content management and collaboration.

However, with great power comes great responsibility.

Organizations looking to implement SharePoint just need to remember this one word: governance. It’s not a big word, but it carries a big stick. ...

Be sure to read the whole article for the full perspective : CMSWire.com

Software as a service | A question of demand | Economist.com

Peter O'Kelly highligted an article on SaaS published by the Economist. Othough Peter highlights the correlation (or not) between services (to be) provided and the share price ..

A timely reality check from The Economist.  Note than Netsuite is trading at $34.64 at the moment, BTW, down from a high of $45.98 since its IPO.

INVESTORS appear ready to suspend disbelief yet again, at least when it comes to technology firms. On December 20th they drove up shares of NetSuite, which provides business software that runs inside a web browser, by 37% on the first day of trading, despite an already high offering price. The same day the share price of salesforce.com, another firm offering web-based software, reached new heights, briefly giving it a market capitalisation of nearly $8 billion. Do their offerings, known as “on-demand software” or “software as a service”, justify such figures?

Software as a service | A question of demand | Economist.com

Source: Software as a service | A question of demand | Economist.com
Peter
Date Published: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:38:00 GMT

Othough Peter highlights the correlation (or not) between services (to be) provided and the share price ..

I thought the maketgrowth projected by Gartner is quite promissing :

...  According to Gartner, a market-research firm, the market for web-based applications reached $5.1 billion in 2007 and will grow to $11.5 billion by 2011—by which time it will account for over one-quarter of software sold to companies ...

Collaboration Will Be A SaaS Hot Spot

Catchie title .. unfortunately the information is only available to Forrester subscribers ...

This data chart will be an overview of the data gleaned from the 2007 enterprise software survey related to collaboration and SaaS.

Source: Collaboration Will Be A SaaS Hot Spot
""
Date Published: Fri, 04 Jan 2008

eWeek: Google Must Make or Break GAPE in 2008

Some perspectives on Google Apps for the Enterprise. The question basicly seems to be is Google serious about the Apps business or not ...

 

.... This may be the year Google makes or breaks GAPE, the enterprise version of Google Apps that lets businesses license hosted e-mail, instant documents, spreadsheets and other applications for $50 per user per year.

The numbers sound great on paper: 2,000 new businesses per day signing up for Google Apps. Then there are hearty testimonials from customers now freed from Microsoft Office or Lotus Notes.

The problem is that neither Microsoft nor IBM will wait for Google to come and take market share. Microsoft has Office Live Workspace, and it's likely IBM will answer with an SAAS (software as a service) version of Lotus Symphony. ....

... Barbin said Google is trying to secure six to eight large prospects considering GAPE for anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 seats. One prospect expects to scale to 100,000 seats. "These are large, sophisticated IT shops that are kicking the tires pretty hard," he said.

Though Barbin couldn't name those customers, he said Google is placing a heavy emphasis on financial services and high-tech, the verticals where Office and Lotus are layered so thick. Appirio is right in the mix, helping Google with its application development, SAAS strategy and SAAS rollout expertise.

Still, analysts at IDC are skeptical that Google will get the traction it needs to muscle Microsoft and IBM from major accounts. ...

... Moreover, Happe said, Google is involved in so many big ideas, from social platforms to wireless networks, that it will be really hard for the company to chip away at Microsoft and IBM in the office and collaboration space.

This is why 2008 will be a telling year for Google Apps. If Google can land a dozen large GAPE installations over the next 12 months, it will give the suite the momentum it needs to roll forward. If the big fish don't bite, it's unlikely the company will put the same resources behind it.

If GAPE fails, it's not clear how much Google will lose. The beauty of this SAAS software is that it is a fortified version of the consumer Google Apps that the company has been rolling out the last few years. Users will still use the free editions of Apps; in the cloud, it's all relative.

Moreover, unlike Yahoo, the company wouldn't have to shut down the whole enterprise division—Google still has Geo and the Google Search Appliance to hawk.

Even so, a healthy SAAS business could be a major supporting money-maker for Google when the online ad market matures in five years or so.  ...

 

Source: Google Must Make or Break GAPE in 2008
matthew_rothenberg@ziffdavis.com
Date Published: Sat, 05 Jan 2008

Online office suites barely register with public, says study; that may change as they mature

ARS Technica published research by NPD Group. They surveyed 600 Americans about their knowledge and usage of Online Office suites. Not much yet is the conclusion ..

... A new study by the NPD Group doesn't paint a great picture for the current state of online productivity suites. If the numbers from a survey of 600 US residents are to be believed, most of us have never heard of, let alone tried, products such as Google Docs or Zoho. Considering various factors such as visibility and the industry's untested waters though, these numbers could be due for a significant shift in the coming years.

According to NPD Group numbers, 73 percent of the 600 Americans surveyed have never heard of online office suites, while another 20 percent have, but simply haven't tried any for one reason or another. The remaining six percent of respondents are split between those who have heard of the suites and either haven't used them again, use them infrequently, and use both online suites and desktop apps like Microsoft Office. Based on these numbers, some have already written a eulogy for Web 2.0 office suites, but that assessment might be a bit early.

There are various reasons for the perceived limited success of online office suites, starting with their lack of visibility. As they stand right now, online office suites have a hard time getting in front of users because they aren't offered as boxed software that can adorn retail shelves. Even Google's toolbar that sits above many of its services doesn't highlight the Docs product; users have to click the More button and find Docs among a sea of other Google offerings. To try and overcome this obstacle and snag more consumer attention, however, Zoho plans to mimic successful online offerings like Apple's .Mac package by getting actual retail boxes on store shelves in 2008. The box will be virtually empty, with not much more than some starter documentation that informs customers about the site, helping to get them started with using its various web apps. ...

More at Source

Source : ARS Technica.com

Social networks overtake webmail

Hitwise Intelligence has done an interesting comparison between the use of social networking tools vs Webmail tools. Very interesting is also the use of social networking tools vs Windows Live Mail per age group. It makes it obvious that the older age groups spent more time on Web mail, but the absolute use of both webmail and social networking tools is higher for the younger age groups ...

... For the fist time last month, UK Internet visits to social networks overtook visits to web-based email services. As the chart below illustrates, our custom category of the top 25 social networks, which includes Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, accounted for 5.17% of all UK Internet visits, compared to 4.98% for Computers and Internet – Email Services, which includes Hotmail; Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, amongst others.

...  It’s interesting to see that age clearly plays a role, with younger Internet users preferring social networks, while older surfers choose email. The graph below illustrates the user-base of Windows Live Mail and Facebook, respectively the most popular web-based email service and social network in the UK.

Source: Social networks overtake webmail
Robin Goad
Date Published: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:00:00 GMT

Forrester: RIAs Bring People-Centered Design To Information Workplaces

I am learning a new buzz word every day ... RIA, it not someone I know, it's a Rich Internet Application. These RIA;s will impact the Information workplace according to Forrester. Good insight, a bit of an open door as the majority of players in the market have a strategy and solutions which include RIA's in one way or the other. Microsoft's Software + Services strategy is a good example of how Microsoft views the Information Workplace is changing ...

... Until recently, the primary options for delivering on the vision of Information Workplaces were enterprise portals or Microsoft Office. While those options remain suitable for many scenarios, rich Internet applications (RIAs) are emerging as vehicles to enable the next generation of Information Workplaces that are best suited for decision-makers and task-oriented workers who engage in complex, multistep processes — people who need seamless, individualized, and highly visual user experiences. Information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals should analyze roles to decide if RIAs are appropriate, integrate data from existing applications into RIA-based Information Workplaces, and test rigorously to make sure that RIA-based Information Workplaces attain optimal results that will improve both employee and end customer experiences. ...

Source: RIAs Bring People-Centered Design To Information Workplaces
Authors: "Erica Driver, Ron Rogowski"
Date Published: Mon, 26 Nov 2007

Forrester: Why You Need A Long-Term Apps Strategy

Interesting point of view. I am sure SaaS / S+S / SOA surely impacts the applications are designed, implemented and maintained. The question is when / by how much and ... what about the legacy, this a weak link in any strategy ...

Business process and applications professionals face a barrage of requests to deploy new functionality, reduce IT costs, and meet vendor-imposed upgrade deadlines. Typical projects include instance consolidation, software upgrades, business process outsourcing (BPO), and third-party maintenance migration. But these projects often occur piecemeal, leading to organizational fatigue, expensive rework, and lost Total Economic Impact™ (TEI). As the industry moves to service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the beginning of the next upgrade cycle, business process and applications professionals should take advantage of this unique opportunity to plan strategically and initiate a long-term applications strategy.

Source: Why You Need A Long-Term Apps Strategy
Author: "R "Ray" Wang"
Date Published: Tue, 27 Nov 2007

Forrester: Software Buyers Should Consider Business-Metric-Based Licenses - But Cautiously

Interesting perspective on licensing. With the broader adoption of SaaS also the licensing models will (have to) change ...

Many IT sourcing professionals negotiating contracts for new software purchases will receive offers of licenses priced by business metrics, such as turnover or employee numbers. Vendors are introducing these types of metric because traditional licenses based on usage or deployment are becoming increasingly problematic for both vendors and customers. Terms such as "user" and "server" are difficult to define or measure in the age of Dynamic Business Applications and Information Workplaces. Companies waste time arguing with their suppliers about licensing technicalities instead of focusing on getting maximum value from the products they've bought. Unlimited "enterprise licenses" using novel pricing schemes can be mutually beneficial, but there are also risks for the unwary in these pricing models — including a dangerous loss of flexibility when a company grows. Buyers should understand the pros and cons of business-metric-based software pricing so they know when to recommend it and how to protect their employers from longer-term problems.

Source: Software Buyers Should Consider Business-Metric-Based Licenses - But Cautiously
Author: "Duncan Jones"
Date Published: Wed, 14 Nov 2007

Forrester: Canonical Information Modeling Is Key To Many Information-As-A-Service and SOA Strategies

Funny how new term related to SaaS are comping up constantly. Forrester talks about Information as a Server (IaaS):

Forrester recently surveyed 1,017 decision-makers at North American and European enterprises on the adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and related technologies including information-as-a-service (IaaS). Compared to other SOA technologies like the enterprise service bus (ESB), IaaS shows stronger adoption, though not as great as business process management (BPM). Of those who see SOA as a priority or critical priority, 41% already use IaaS, and another 14% plan to pilot or adopt the technology within 12 months. Additionally, 39% of the 76 enterprise architects who responded to Forrester's October 2007 Global Enterprise Architecture Role Online Survey said they are working on a canonical information model as part of their SOA, ESB, or IaaS strategy. This result accords with Forrester's experience, which is that canonical modeling is becoming a critical element in implementing IaaS. Information architects should prepare accordingly.

Source: Canonical Information Modeling Is Key To Many Information-As-A-Service and SOA Strategies
Author: "Mike Gilpin"
Date Published: Thu, 15 Nov 2007

Forrester: eBusiness Managers Test The Social Computing Waters

Social Computing making ways in eBusiness companies ...

Forrester recently conducted a survey of our eBusiness, channel and product management research panel on the topic of Social Computing in September 2007. We found that eBusiness firms struggle to determine exactly how a Social Computing strategy fits into their online sales and service efforts. Only a small number of firms are currently using Social Computing to interact with customers, although an additional group of companies have initiatives to launch underway or are piloting efforts on their intranets and internal sites. eBusiness firms currently make the most use of RSS feeds and blogs, and while they're setting aside some budget and headcount for these initiatives, they're partnering with agencies and technology providers for execution.

Source: eBusiness Managers Test The Social Computing Waters
Author: "Elizabeth Davis, Carrie Johnson"
Date Published: Fri, 02 Nov 2007

Forrester: SaaS Economics Will Change ISVs' SI And VAR Channels

Timely snapshot as Peter O'Kelly (Burton Group) always calls this. The impact of SaaS on the channel :

... Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is restructuring software channel managers' relationships with their implementation partners and reseller channels. The revenues that system integrators (SIs) receive from SaaS sales and implementation services are much smaller than those from traditional on-premise solutions of a similar size. The consulting skills required for successful SaaS project delivery are also different, with the emphasis on business change management and not on technical implementation. As SIs and VARs change their sales models and consulting skills sets in order to compete successfully in the SaaS world, traditional software vendors will need to nurture their channel partners as they develop SaaS sales and delivery capabilities. ...

Source: SaaS Economics Will Change ISVs' SI And VAR Channels
Author: "Michael Speyer"
Date Published: Mon, 29 Oct 2007

Forrester: Topic Overview: Applications Outsourcing

Ok, it's not SaaS, but it comes very close. Nothing is as difficult as outsoucing applications ... where does the infrastructure end and the application begin ... how do you establish the link between the functional / business owners of the application and the outsourcer ... Forrester puts some focus on this space and indicates that this is defenitly a trend that's growing fast

Firms are outsourcing applications like never before, involving a variety of applications outsourcing service types as well as a broad range of suppliers. Enterprises are increasingly likely to make applications outsourcing a centerpiece of their outsourcing strategies. But the term applications outsourcing actually can refer to a variety of services, ranging from maintenance and enhancement to new development and composite offerings. The different services demand varying strategies and tactics and may entail different suppliers — and even different contractual and service-level agreement (SLA) structures. With applications outsourcing plans on the upswing, potential clients should ensure that they get their houses in order as much as possible.

Source: Topic Overview: Applications Outsourcing
Author: "Bill Martorelli"
Date Published: Wed, 17 Oct 2007

Microsoft grote winnaar Computable Awards

Ik las het dit weekend. Super om je werkgever zo goed uit de bus te zien komen : 'Beste werkgever', 'Beste zakenpartner' en 'Krachtigste ict-bedrijf van het jaar'.

Computable reikte gisteravond de Computable Awards uit aan twintig winnaars. Microsoft won de meeste awards, namelijk drie.

Computable heeft gisteravond tijdens een feestelijke avond voor het tweede achtereenvolgende jaar de Computable Awards uitgereikt. De vierhonderd aanwezigen zagen hoe hoofdredacteur Alex Beishuizen samen met RTL-presentatrice Chazia Mourali de awards uitdeelden aan twintig winnaars.

Microsoft ging met drie Computable 100 Imago Awards naar huis. Het bedrijf werd uitgeroepen tot 'Beste werkgever', 'Beste zakenpartner' en 'Krachtigste ict-bedrijf van het jaar'. Google Nederland won de Award voor het 'Meest innovatieve imago'.

Bron: Computable.nl

Eric Thijssen was namens Microsoft aanwezig en ging met een kofferbak vol awards naar huis :-)

Arjan Dasselaar: Is Google sociaal genoeg?

De column van Arjan Dasselaar op Planet.nl was gisteren geheel gewijd aan Google. Arjan vraagt zich af hoe serieus we Google moeten nemen. Ik neem aan dat hij dit met een knipoog doet, maar desalniettemin gooit hij wel wat relevante punten in de discussie :

... Zwijgzaam bedrijf probeert met overname Jaiku alsnog greep te krijgen op web 2.0

... Google houdt ervan de mystiek rondom haar merk in stand te houden. Zolang je niets zegt, gaan mensen de stilte invullen met hun eigen, op het verleden gebaseerde en dus hooggespannen, verwachtingen. Lijkt althans de pr-afdeling van Google te redeneren. Erg relevant wordt de functie van woordvoerder bij het bedrijf sowieso niet gevonden: de vacature van pr-mens voor Google Nederland heeft vele, vele maanden opengestaan op de Google-site. ...

... Maar wat heeft Google de laatste tijd nu écht gepresteerd?

Toegegeven, de zoekmachine blijft onverminderd goed zijn werk doen. Tenminste, behalve op de momenten dat het ding onverklaarbare kuren gaat vertonen, die zo vreemd zijn dat zelfs geroutineerde specialisten zich afvragen waar het bedrijf mee bezig is.

Qua innovatie valt het, die leuke flightsimulator in Google Earth daargelaten, een beetje tegen bij Google. Elders kennis inkopen dan maar? Geld zat. De koers van het aandeel Google ligt inmiddels boven de 600 dollar.

En dus kocht Google gisteren Jaiku, een Twitter-kloon. Blijkbaar - Google zelf laat weinig los over haar strategie - wil het bedrijf meeprofiteren van de markt voor sociale internettoepassingen. ...

... Dat de overname van Jaiku een groot succes zal worden, is dus bepaald niet bij voorbaat gegarandeerd.

Het antwoord op de nu volgende vraag hoeft geen 'ja' te zijn, maar het is raar dat ze überhaupt niet gesteld wordt.

Is Google misschien een one trick pony, alleen goed in het maken en aanbieden van zoektechnologie? ...

Source: Planet Internet

Melanie Turek: AT&T Acquisition Highlights Importance of Customer Choice

Melanie Turek gives her veiw on the AT&T acquisition of Interwise which is a provider of converged voice, video and web conferencing software in the same space as Cisco's WebEx and Microsoft's LiveMeeting. Also very interesting is the quoted Frost & Sullivan report because it says :

1. Revenue for the North America for webconferecing solutions will more the double in the next 6 years.
2. On premise solutions will also undergo rapid growth.

... In an effort to expand its IP business services, AT&T Inc. last week announced that is has agreed, through one of its subsidiaries, to acquire privately held Interwise, a global enterprise provider of converged voice, video and web conferencing software. AT&T will pay approximately $121 million in cash for the company, which will operate as a business unit within AT&T Global Business Services. AT&T expects to retain Interwise’s 150 employees, including its R&D center in Israel.

AT&T says the acquisition, expected to close in the fourth quarter, strategically aligns Interwise’s IP-based conferencing and collaboration solution with AT&T’s enterprise networking, communications and collaboration services, global MPLS-based IP network and its portfolio of conferencing services. ...

... The acquisition should help AT&T gain a foothold in the web conferencing market as a player in its own right, rather than relying on reselling services from WebEx and Microsoft. (What it will do with those partnerships remains to be seen, but clearly this move puts pressure on them.) ...

... According to the latest research from Frost & Sullivan, the web conferencing services and software market in North America reached $594.4 million in 2006 and is forecasted to grow to $1.4 billion in 2012. Although currently 85% of web conferencing revenues come from hosted services, Frost & Sullivan expects that the new generation of on-premise software applications is poised to undergo rapid growth, as software applications become easier and less expensive to deploy. ...

Source : Collaboration Loop

CMS Watch : SaaS vendors not included in Gartner ECM Magic Quadrant

CMS Watch raises the flag on Gartner's latest ECM MQ report: SaaS vendors are not included.

They mean 'pure play' SaaS vendors I assume and we could argue wether or not there are fully SaaS based ECM solutions out there in which enterprises store all their data externally in the cloud ? Nevertheless it would be good if Gartner would make a statement about in/exclusion of these vendors.

... SaaS: New Gartner Report Magic or Illusion?
The folks at Gartner have come up with another iteration of their “Magic” Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendors with what appears to be a very short-sighted perspective — an intentional exclusion of Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors as part of the market for content management software.

This naturally begs the question, why not include them? A big part of an analyst firm’s focus should be on what’s coming, as opposed to what has already happened. ...

On-Demand/SaaS Reality: Enterprising SaaS

Guy Smith quotes some interesting Gartner figures on the uptake of SaaS and where it finds its way in the Enterprise:

... The good folks at Gartner shocked me recently when they reported that SaaS was eating a larger hole in enterprise budgets, now accounting for about $4.2B in spending, and growing at a 22.3% clip.
Many folks, myself included, predicted some enterprise SaaS uptake, mainly filling in areas where IT was backlogged or where renting services was faster and cheaper than implementing something behind the firewall. By this criteria, any SaaS offering that supported...

• Smaller groups of people — not enterprise wide
• In distributed areas
• Where collaboration was required

… would be a hit. Sure enough Gartner observed “SaaS adoption is highest in applications that support simplified, common business processes or large, distributed virtual workforce teams.” This explains how SalesForce.com can attract enterprises — CRM is not a universal, corporate-wide function. But people who need access to CRM data are far-flung, especially sales types who know the desk clerk at the Butte Holiday Inn better than they know their own wives (what happens in Butte stays in Butte … thankfully). ...

On-Demand/SaaS Reality: Enterprising SaaS
Guy Smith
Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:23:24 GMT

AccMan: Just how far are we on the saas/on-demand journey

Dennis Howlett gives a good perspective on some of the SaaS solutions out there. Many of these vendors seem to struggle with integration / interoperability. This could be a choice not to integrate, but in many cases it could also come down to plain old development costs or localisation issues ... Nevertheles a challenge.

... A recent email from a company in the market for an on-demand business solution got me thinking about the current state of play. This particular company is a NetSuite user. It is thoroughly ticked off with what it sees as early stage, buggy software. It runs an operation which uses an online shopping cart that ’should’ feed seamlessly to the back end accounting and it wants CRM capability. It’s a 6 person business.

I was hard pressed to provide an alternative vendor operating in the UK capable of providing that level of functionality, though I did point them to Pearl and Twinfield as possible contenders. Xero looks cool but doesn’t really have the capabilities this company wants. The company said it is seriously considering Salesforce.com for CRM and hoped there is an accounting vendor that plugs into the SFdC platform. There is - but not for the UK, or rather not for a company of this size.

I was struck by two things:

• Salesforce.com has clearly done a great job of grabbing mindhsare. I’ve said before that potential customers of all sizes but especially small businesses are now looking closely at SFdC as a supplier. A year ago they would not have bothered.
  
• Despite its size, the company is asking for sophisticated capabilities. It seems that even the smallest of organizations has a level of expectation with which the vendor community struggles. ...

Source: Just how far are we on the saas/on-demand journey
Author: Dennis Howlett
Date Published: Wed, 26 Sep 2007

CMS Watch: SharePoint Light is Live and SaaSy but Lacks Depth

CMS Watch adds some crytical notes to Microsoft's Office Live Workspace offering:

... Not enough free diskspace ... the service is a companion (hence the term Software + Services). They seem to like the integrationpoint with Office and Outlook.

They are fully right in stating that it is not 100% comparable to Zoho / Google Apps, etc. And that's right. Companies who will make use of this service do this to share information with others, maybe mainly those outside their company. This means they will certianly not put all of their documents 'in the cloud' but only those that need to be shared in for example collaborative projects with business partners. This seems like a good differentiator to me ...

 

... Microsoft has announced Office Live Workspace (OLW) and its like a SaaS version of SharePoint Light, only perhaps lighter than one might expect.

Office is taking a beating in the feisty SaaS sector, where Zoho, Google Apps and others are currently vying for marketshare. Even Adobe has recently announced it would be acquiring the parent company of Buzzword, which provides Office-esque capabilities seamlessly between the Web and (eww!) non-Web worlds. ...

... Rather than a replacement, think companion.

The Office Live Workspace aims to replicate a portion of SharePoint’s collaboration and storage facilities, in a Web-based portal. The quick and dirty summary is that it gives Microsoft Live users a free (watch that word) place to store, share and collaborate on documents. The kick-off storage limit is reported at a measly 250 MB — which MS claims is good enough to “store 1000+ Microsoft Office documents in one place.”

CMSWire speaks to a range of industry professionals and organizations focused on content management issues. Learn more.

Yeah right. We’re expecting some pretty early frustration. 2 GB isn’t even good enough for email these days. We have to ask, just what are they thinking?

Anyhow, aside from skimping on storage, the new offer does have some potential. Office champs will be able to upload, download, view, edit (offline) and comment on (online) documents.

Now, here’s what you can’t do: You can’t create new documents, or edit existing ones directly. You can’t create a wiki. You can’t create a blog. You can’t create custom lists. You can’t run online discussions or presentations.

Remember, the service is a companion. To participate, you’ll still need MS Office installed locally.

With this in mind, there are a few other Office integration points. You’ll be able to tie-in with Outlook by synchronizing contacts, tasks and event lists. This is not ground breaking, but could prove useful to some.

From our seat, this comes off like a classic case of defending marketshare — a.k.a., a stop-gap — rather than taking the offensive tack. And really, this doesn’t address the Google Apps/Zoho/Adobe threats at all; it only assumes that an enterprise-based Word or Excel user really just dislikes the idea of transferring documents back and forth via email or other storage media — to quote the OLW website, “No more flash drives.” ...

Source: SharePoint Light is Live and SaaSy but Lacks Depth

Oracle, SAP, salesforce.com, NetSuite thoughts

Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research Group shares some thoughts on SAP's Business By Design and also on NetSuite.

... SAP introduced Business By Design (BBD) which I have previously commented on a little. Let me say here that it isn’t out till 2008 but that it will be fun to take a look at. At first blush it appears to be something that the installed base will like but that may not compete favorably with the likes of NetSuite or salesforce.com. SAP has time and money to make improvements but markets don’t wait around. NetSuite will have cash from its IPO — are we there yet? — soon and then the fight will heat up. Also, all those salesforce.com partners will have something to say about front and back office integration and applications that span the two. ...

... Back to NetSuite, a last thought, isn’t it amazing how they continue to carve out their niche? You keep waiting for them to go head-to-head with someone like salesforce.com but it doesn’t really happen. They’ve just introduced more vertical applications in the services and wholesale/distribution sectors and if anything they compete more with SAP than salesforce.com (as they should). But NetSuite is a native mid-market player and in a close game right now you still have to pick them over SAP and the points (recall SAP’s BBD isn’t out till sometime next year).

NetSuite, more than most other vendors, needs to start thinking about GRC issues (assuming they haven’t already). Specifically, GRC is a big enterprise idea right now but it will need to be brought down to size for the SMB and mid-market and that’s NetSuite’s sweet spot. ...

Source: Oracle, SAP, salesforce.com, NetSuite thoughts

Denis stresses the importance of GRC and I thought GRC ? What's GRC ? Fortunatly Denis did a post on GRC :

There's a new category of enterprise computing beginning to take shape and I believe it will be important to the front office and CRM.  The category in question is GRC which stands for governance, risk, and compliance.  Governance became a big deal when too many corporations let down their shareholders as well as other stakeholders like employees and imploded due to management misconduct.  Companies like Tyco and Enron will be GRC whipping-boys and shorthand for bad management for a long time.

Source : Pay attention to GRC

IDC: IBM Is Developing a SaaS Marketplace for SMBs

From the IDC blogs : IBM's SaaS solutions for the SMB market :

... For two years, we’ve pointed to IBM’s conspicuous absence in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market - and in the broader market for online delivery of business services - as a critical weakness in IBM’s SMB strategy.  In last year’s IDC Predictions, we predicted that the company would finally develop an online marketplace for SMBs, starting with applications from its key WebSphere application software partners, and expanding to a broader range of applications and technology and business services.  We predicted this, not because we had any inside knowledge, but because it was clear that the market is demanding this approach.

At IBM System & Technology Group’s (STG) analyst meeting in Stamford, CT today, STG head Bill Zeitler, followed by Marc Dupaquier, GM of Business Systems in STG, revealed that IBM is indeed developing such an online marketplace and community.  More details are sure to come out later today and tomorr